Sometimes, you know what you are meant to do long before you actually begin doing it. At the age of six I was asked to draw a series of pictures depicting myself, my family, my home, my pets, my teacher, something I liked, something I disliked, and “This is what I would like to be.” Recently, when I came across those drawings, I found a simply-drawn girl standing in front of a canvas, arms outstretched in a big gesture of “TaDa!”

Crayon art by Kassy Daggett, age 6

The artist in that little girl took a circuitous route, but never strayed far from the elements of color and composition. For many years I owned a graphic design business where I learned about the shapes and shades of artistic expression. I became immersed in the process printing language of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and BlacK (CMYK). Around the house, art projects were always in various stages of composition, and I played with a wide range of mediums over the years.

But it wasn’t until January 18, 2013, when a severe downhill skiing accident forced me to slow down, that I began to hear the persistent voice first heeded by that six-year-old child. In these paintings you’ll find her unique expression blended with a life long passion for surrendering to gravity while skiing.

While laying still during months of recovery from a shattered left shoulder, nerve damage in my right leg, and a head injury, I contemplated, “How might it be possible to translate the blissful feeling I have while skiing into a different activity?” I didn’t know if I’d be able to continue skiing and I “needed” to find another way of connecting to gravity. Prior to the accident I had been playing with acrylic paints for about a year. On June 6, 2013, almost five months after the accident, the spark of an idea took hold as a knowing. It was time to startpainting with gravity!

Just like standing above a steep hillside surveying the terrain before launching myself onto the fall line, I hold an intention for each painting and wait for a silent nudge to follow the momentum of gravity. My painting process is aerobic and immediate. It’s a relationship between my inner landscape and the expression that’s possible while paint is skiing down a canvas. I never know in advance what the finished piece will look like. I simply hold an intention—whether it’s gratitude, love, a person, place or thing, etc.—and like traversing a variety of runs down a mountain, each exploration is full of surprises.

Winston Churchill said, Without innovation, art is a corpse. These canvasses are my way of keeping the art—and the artist within—alive.

I’m currently painting with the limited palette of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, BlacK and a little bit of white on occasion. I blend those “process colors” directly on the canvas to create the full spectrum of colors seen in each piece. I also returned to skiing about a year after the accident.